The regulations will have an immediate impact on the exercise of freedom of conscience by health care workers. According to news reports, those who are privately employed must complete an affidavit setting out what they object to and why, and must post a prominent notice of what “reproductive health services” they will not provide. Government health care workers will apparently be forced to use some kind of civil service process to obtain approval for the exercise of freedom of conscience.

DOH Assistant Secretary Dr. Madeleine Valera stated that the law would be applied “liberally,” by which she appears to have meant that freedom of conscience will be restricted as much as possible so that purported “human rights” would be protected. [Sun Star]